Star Trek: Discovery gives us a fun bottle episode this week, providing us the opportunity to spend time developing the characters and their relationship in an homage to the greatest time loop episodes from previous Star Trek, such as the great fifth season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Cause and Effect.”

Of all the episodes of Discovery thus far, this one felt the most “Star Trek,” relying on a familiar science fiction concept that was enjoyably executed.

As the episode opens — this is the first live-action Star Trek episode since “The Cage” without a cold open — Burnham is reflecting on her new position and routine on the Discovery. At a party in the mess hall, Burnham and Tyler are called to the bridge before they are given an opportunity to have a discussion about their burgeoning feelings for each other, despite Tilly’s efforts to connect them. The Discovery has encountered a gorgamander, an endangered ‘space whale,’ which the crew is obligated to bring aboard.

When they do so, they find that Harcourt Fenton Mudd is hiding in the creature, having escaped from the Klingon prison in which Lorca left him, and determined to take control of the ship and sell it to the Klingons.

Mudd is using a time crystal to reset time every 30 minutes, in order to learn the perfect method of taking control of the Discovery so that he can sell it to the Klingons, and to exact his revenge on Lorca for leaving him in the Klingon prison.

The only member of the crew who realizes that time is resetting is Stamets, due to his interaction with the spore drive, which seems to be having an ongoing effect on his personality (he’s gotten very groovy!) While Mudd learns how to more effectively take control of the ship in each time loop, Stamets learns the fastest way of getting the crew to realize they are stuck in a time loop and work against Mudd.

In the penultimate time loop, Mudd kills Tyler after the crew almost succeed in regaining control of Discovery, and Stamets gives himself up to Mudd as he is unable to watch Mudd kill any more people. Mudd is about to restore the time stream to normal when Burnham offers herself to Mudd as another valuable addition in his transaction with the Klingons, given her role in killing T’Kuvma. She forces Mudd to reset time one more time by committing suicide, and restarts the process again.

In the final time loop, Burham, Tyler, and Stamets deceive Mudd into thinking he has won by re-wiring the captain’s chair. Instead of the Klingons that Mudd was expecting, his wife Stella and father-in-law Barron Grimes beam aboard the Discovery. Grimes offers to take Mudd off Discovery’s hands and Mudd, who was more interested in Stella’s money than her or her family, is clearly dissatisfied with the Discovery crew getting the best of him.

The characters and their dynamics finally click properly into place in this episode. The collaborative relationship depicted between Burnham, Stamets, Tyler, and Tilly is grounded in the very best tradition of the franchise. Gone is the coldness and the confrontation, replaced by colleagues who genuinely seem to respect and enjoy each other’s company.

This foursome (pending further developments of a certain fan theory regarding Lt. Tyler,) are quickly forming the heart and soul of the Discovery in the same mold as previous Star Trek crews. It’s an encouraging sign, and because of the confrontation in earlier episodes it feels thoroughly earned. These characters like and trust each other because they have proved their worth, which is ultimately more satisfying than a crew who gel right from the get go.

We get a number of great character moments in this episode that add to their depth. We learn that Burnham has never been in love and we see the relationship between Burnham and Tyler begin to blossom. Sonequa Martin-Green and Shazad Latif have so much chemistry it’s almost enough to incite an explosion on par with combining anicium and yurium (and as a result I am hoping the fan theory about Tyler and Voq is more nuanced in execution than it suggests on its face).

In this episode we also get much more insight into the Stamets/Culber relationship and why Culber would be attracted to the misanthropic Stamets that we came to know before his interaction with the spore drive. Stamets is fast becoming my favorite character; here’s hoping he makes it through the season and his interactions with the spore drive alive!

The Harry Mudd we see in this episode is much more dangerous than the character who turns up in the Original Series. Rainn Wilson expertly shows Mudd as vindictive, goofy, erudite, ambitious, deceitful, and delightful. You get the sense that there are multiple takes of a lot of Rainn Wilson’s lines – and maybe some ad-libbing?

If so, I hope we get to see more of that on the special features of Discovery’s inevitable Blu-ray release. Ultimately, the harder edge for Mudd’s character either works for you or it doesn’t – it’s a little difficult to see how Mudd the murderer reconciles with the milder Mudd the conman from the Original Series, but I find myself not overly concerned by it.

Likewise, the episode’s resolution is one that I can see dividing many fans into the love it or hate it camp. For me, I love it because it’s just like how a classic episode of the Original Series would end, even if it’s not all that realistic. Mudd, who committed multiple murders in his time jumps, should realistically be remanded into custody for a life in prison.

Instead, he is forced to rejoin his wife and father-in-law – a fate worse than prison for Mudd? It either works for you as a loving homage to the streak of camp that ran through the comedic episodes of the Original Series, or it falls flat and Mudd has been allowed to get away with multiple murders. I can see both sides.

We also see the crew of the Discovery acting more like relatible 21^st century humans than any previous Star Trek crew, which is another element that is likely to ignite debate. We see a party on the Discovery very familiar to anyone who has come of age in the last four decades, complete with beer pong, dancing to Wyclef Jean, and making out.

Cello recitals in Ten Forward this is not, but I think for Star Trek to connect with a modern audience and be able to teach us important lessons about humanity today, it needs its characters to make those kinds of relatible choices. At this point, who doesn’t see a little bit of Tilly in themselves?

Ultimately, I enjoyed “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” just as much as other great Star Trek reset button episodes, including “Cause and Effect,” which it most closely resembled. We got much-needed additional insight into the characters, the crew is really starting to gel together, and the show is continuing to demonstrate its confidence in using familiar Star Trek tropes but doing so in interesting and creative ways.

Like Stamets says, “As days go, this is a weird one…” but boy, was it fun!

And as one final note: We finally get a good enough view of the USS Discovery dedication plaque in this episode, letting us read the quote many have been asking about since the ship arrived on screen.

“All truths can be understood once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” – Galileo Galilei

 

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Series producers Aaron Harberts and Ted Sullivan each revealed a few behind-the-scenes filming images from Discovery‘s seventh episode tonight on Twitter.

Star Trek: Discovery returns next Sunday with “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” — and keep checking back to TrekCore throughout the week for all the latest in Discovery news!